


this is just my day job

by WDW



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Gen, Identity Porn, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-29 17:22:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3904591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WDW/pseuds/WDW
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Original prompt: Matt gets attacked/captured not as Daredevil, but as his everyday lawyer self. Maybe for revenge, or kidnapping him for leverage? (Most bad guys probably wouldn't expect much fight out of a blind guy.)</p>
<p>Title also taken from original prompt because I have no creativity.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Posting it to AO3 in hopes that I will be motivated to finish this. I apologize if this dies - I don't exactly have a great track record for starting fics.

Foggy gets the call from Brett just as he finally gets to the doorstep of his apartment. He fumbles awkwardly for his phone with one hand as he mentally curses his past self for having the bright idea of putting five keys on the same ring. They all look the same, barely Illuminated as they are by the weakly flickering light over his door, no matter how hard he squints.  
  
“Sup, buddy? What’s going on?” He says, pressing the phone between his cheek and shoulder as he tries to force a key into the slot.   
  
It jams about half way in, and Foggy mutters a half-hearted curse under his breathe. Sure, it would be easier to do this without holding onto an insanely heavy briefcase, but Nelson & Murdock had finally gotten a case (one that didn’t have to do with murderous crime lords or devil-suited vigilantes, thank God) and he had a lot of important papers in there that he didn’t want to get stolen or stained with unmentionable liquids, because ew.  
  
He’s about to try the second one when Brett answers, his voice uncharacteristically serious – real serious, not when they do the whole ‘enemies’ routine. “Foggy, get your ass over here. One of your friends just came in reporting a kidnapping. I don’t know the details, but -”  
  
Foggy drops his briefcase. “What?” He says – okay, shouts – into the speaker, because holy crap, Matt had told him and Karen to keep an eye out, but it had been weeks since Fisk had been put behind bars and nothing had happened, and – they had put their guards down again, haven’t they? Just like what happened with Mrs. Cardenas, and with Ben, and with Karen in her apartment –  
  
Oh shit, Karen. They had already gone after her multiple fucking times, how could he be so stupid - “Matt’s – Matt’s down there now, right?”   
  
But… that didn't make sense, not really. Matt was – Matt was Daredevil, he was the guy who brought down Fisk in the first place. Foggy had left a bit earlier than Matt and Karen had, they must have been walking out together (which seriously wasn't a concern for Foggy, because come on. His friendship with both Matt and Karen were stronger than that.)   
  
Matt was some blind ninja badass, there was no way he couldn’t have taken down a couple of kidnappers, especially when they were after Karen. Unless…  
  
“Matt?” Brett repeats, confused. “No, it’s that woman who got involved with the Union Allied fiasco back then. Karen, right?” A brief pause. “Y’know, your girlfriend?”  
  
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Foggy says quickly. “I don’t know. It’s complicated. But – wait, so Karen’s the one down at the precinct right now? Matt’s not with her?”  
  
“Yup. It’s just her. Look, Foggy, just get down here fast. I don’t know the specifics, and I’m just guessing here, but… I think its Matt who got taken. She was crying too hard for it to be someone she didn't know –“  
  
Yeah, that was where his thought train was going as well. “Shit,” he says, then, “Damn it. Brett – Buddy, thank you so fucking much. As soon as I get the chance, I’m going to get Bess the best damn cigars I can get my hands on.”  
  
“Hell, Foggy, who do you think I am?” Brett scoffs disbelievingly. “Matt’s my friend too, and I’m not even gonna mention the obvious. All I need from you is to get the hell down here right now.”  
  
“Yeah. Shit. I’ll be there.” Foggy hangs up, yanks his keys from his door, and breaks into a run. He’s halfway down the street when he realizes that he has his briefcase with him, its weight nothing compared to the sheer panic he’s feeling.   
  
He sees the flash of yellow and thank God for New York taxis for operating even when any sane person should be asleep. Foggy’s seated inside within a minute, and he finally gets the chance to take a breathe and think, because –  
  
Matt got kidnapped? Seriously, Matt? Maybe a month ago, Foggy would be shitting his pants at the realization that his blind best friend just got nabbed off the streets by people who do not have his health as a top concern (obvious understatement.) Now, with the knowledge that his best friend was also some kind of ninja, as well as a vigilante who dressed in bullet-proof devil armor to patrol the streets four nights a week… he was slightly less worried (slightly, because he still remembers all the fucking blood and how many stitches had he needed?)  
  
Foggy still had no idea how exactly Matt’s super-senses worked, but judging from the number of scars on his body, they didn’t help him much in the whole, ‘not getting the shit beat out of him’ department. Why hadn’t Matt beat the shit out of those guys? Maybe he didn’t want to expose his identity to Karen – but Matt had always been the sensible one.   
  
Had they taken him by surprise? Knocked him unconscious before he could punch them out? Or – Foggy swallows then, his fingers clenching at his seat – maybe he had been too hurt to do anything. Jesus Christ.  
  
“Hey,” he says loudly, getting the taxi driver’s attention. “Twenty bucks if you can get to the precinct within five minutes.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have like... half of the next chapter written, but then I got worried about whether or not I should be going the direction I am. Gah.

Karen holds his arm loosely, her heart thumping nervously as she steps forward in small, careful steps. “Matt, are you – you’re sure I’m doing this right?” She whispers to him, her breath hitching slightly. “I’m not pulling you along, right? Foggy taught me, but I’ve never –“  
  
“You’re doing fine,” Matt says. She really is. Though Karen’s movements are uncomfortably stilted due to her obvious nervousness, she stays one step ahead of him at all times. She forgets, once in a while, to mention changes in terrain and occasionally pulls him a bit too forcefully, but nothing like Vanessa Marianne (or was that Fisk?) back in the art gallery. Not as good as Foggy, but then again, Foggy had been guiding him for almost a decade, to the point that it had become automatic.   
  
Besides, it wasn’t as if he needed a guide, not really. His other senses compensated for his lack of sight enough that he wouldn’t be stepping into traffic anytime soon and more, not that Karen knew. To her, he was a normal blind man – no enhanced senses, no Stick-trained fighting abilities, no, as Foggy called them, ‘ninja superpowers.’   
  
“Good,” Karen says fervently, letting out a slight sigh of relief that would have been inaudible to anyone else. “You’ll tell me if I do anything wrong, right?”  
  
“Of course,” he replies absentmindedly.   
  
That was the thing, wasn’t it? Foggy knew about his, uh, ‘night time activities,’ and Karen didn’t. To be fair, it wasn’t as if Matt planned to stumble back to his apartment half-dead. He didn’t want either of them to know, but… well, there’s what they say about the best made plans of mice and men.   
  
As much as he wished that Foggy had made his way into his apartment that night, Matt knew realistically that if he hadn’t… the police would have knocked down his door the next day to find an incredibly incriminating corpse. After that, Foggy and Karen would have found out anyways, albeit under even worse circumstances. That scenario was one that Matt had no desire to even contemplate.   
  
Logically, he should have told them at the beginning. It wouldn’t be hard, relatively speaking. They talked about the Devil in Hell’s Kitchen enough that it would have been easy to cut in and tell them the truth. He was the masked man, the Devil in Hell’s Kitchen, Daredevil. Yes, he was blind, and while he had learned to compensate for it somewhat, he still couldn’t read a newspaper with pictures, give the color of a given piece of clothing, or see the sky. He could fight, could defend himself.   
  
How would have they reacted, if he told them from the start? Disbelieving, probably. But Foggy always could tell the difference between his jokes and his truths, and Karen was idealistic enough to believe in heroes. They would have accepted it eventually, and it would stopped a lot of the confusion and misunderstandings that had happened near the conclusion of the Fisk case. Maybe – and Matt can’t stop himself from thinking – Mrs. Cardenas and Ben could both have lived.   
  
Maybe not. This was a train of thought from which there was no return. Maybe’s, maybe not’s – what was done was done, and his mistakes were his to burden.  
  
Perhaps, he was just too selfish to tell Karen. How Foggy had reacted then… it had hurt, more so than Matt could have ever imagined. For those few days, he had been certain that he had fucked up, he had lost his best friend. He understood where Foggy was coming from, knew why he was angry – and that had been the worst part, because it had been his fault that he hadn’t told Foggy the truth. But why – why wouldn’t Foggy just see that he needed to do this, to go out there and defend his city –  
  
In the end, he and Foggy had made up. Matt didn’t know what he would have done if his best friend really had left. Nothing healthy, that was for sure.   
  
He didn’t want to experience that again. Karen might idolize Daredevil, but Matt had betrayed her trust. How many times had she brought up the devil-suited vigilante, only for him to play dumb? She was smart, she would ask the questions that Matt did not, under any circumstances, want to answer – if he told her and Foggy the truth, would they still have urged Mrs. Cardenas to fight on? Had she known to tell him about her and Ben’s excursion to the nursing home, would Fisk have found out? How many lives could he have saved if he had told the truth in the beginning?  
  
No, he thinks to himself. It was cowardly of him, but –  
  
A whiff of oiled metal and gunpowder. The crackle of a footstep on gravel, too heavy to be his or Karen’s. He and Karen were being followed, and they were catching up fast. He hadn't sensed them at first, so caught up as he was in his mental turmoil. All thoughts of self-flagellation vanished as he focused on more immediate and important concerns.   
  
Karen didn’t notice, her heart staying at the same slightly hurried rhythm she had since they left the office, which wasn’t surprising – the men being sent after them were still some distance away. But Matt had no weapons on him except for his cane and his own firsts, which under normal circumstances would be enough. He would get away from all – four? Five? Still a bit too far to be sure, especially with the number of pedestrians still on the streets – of his armed pursuers with a few bullet grazes, a broken nose, and maybe a few slashes. Nothing he couldn’t survive, especially if he called ahead before stumbling into Claire’s apartment like last time.  
  
But… Karen was here. His identity wasn’t the issue - while Matt had no desire to tell her the truth about himself, he wasn’t going to trade either of their lives for that secret. It was the knowledge that if he did get into a fight, bullets would go flying, and it would take only one to end Karen’s life.   
  
Matt slows down. “Wait, Karen, I know a shortcut to my apartment,” he says, and prays that Karen had not spontaneously gained his lie-detecting abilities in the past few minutes. “It’s right up there, that alley –“  
  
“Uh, Matt?” She asks, wary. “I don’t know… It’s pretty late. Maybe that’s not the best idea…”  
  
Smart, under ordinary circumstances. But those men meant business, and it meant that they would do anything to get to them. There were plenty of places from their current location to his and Karen’s apartments where they could get attacked, and Matt knows he would rather pick the battleground himself. He knows this area of Hell’s Kitchen, his radar sense telling him about the outcrop here in the brick wall, the distinctive cracks in the pavement, and the specific alley was perfect for the current scenario.  
  
Many places to hide, though most of them weren’t exactly desirable locations. Dumpsters, he meant. He had spent enough quality time inside those to know how well they worked as a hiding place under extenuating circumstances. The walls dampened sound, the stench disguised smell, and there were so many in the city that it was extremely difficult to narrow down just which one was hiding a patrolling vigilante. Karen didn’t even have the enhanced sense of smell. It was a great idea, and the men were far back enough that there would be a short but significant gap in time before they caught up to him and Karen.   
  
“Trust me,” he says, smiling. “It won’t take long.” Maybe it was because she trusted him, maybe it was because she didn’t want to be rude, maybe it was because he smiled – but she makes no reply for a few moment, before blurting, “Sorry, that was a nod, I forgot –“  
  
“It’s fine,” he says. Nods, like most other subtle physical gestures, were still his greatest weakness.   
  
They’re about ten feet into the alley when he halts in his steps. “Matt –? “ Karen questions, turning slightly.  
  
“Karen, this is important. Do what I tell you, don’t argue – there’s no time for that,” he says quickly. “Run to the end of the alley. There’s a lot of dumpsters on either side – choose the third one on the right, get in there. I know it smells, I’m sorry, but there’s no better option right now. Remember, third one on the right, and don’t come out until you’re sure it’s safe.”  
  
“Matt,” Karen repeats, her heartbeat spiking up enormously. She’s not yet panicking, but it’s a close thing. “What the hell –“  
  
“We’re being followed,” he says shortly. “Fisk’s men, I think. Don’t ask me why I know. Just go. Go, now, before they come.”  
  
For a brief, terrifying second, Matt’s worried that she’s going to keep arguing – insisting that she stay with him to face the men, perhaps – but Karen’s heart rate slows down, and she lets go of his arm – slowly, reluctantly.   
  
“I – Matt – Fine. But don’t you dare – don’t you fucking dare get yourself hurt, because I’m getting every police officer in Hell’s Kitchen to hunt those bastards down,” she says quickly, fiercely. Karen gets it, and Matt has never been more thankful in his life that she has the rare ability to stay calm under pressure. If both of them were taken, the police precinct wouldn’t find out until the next morning, at the very earliest. And if Matt was the one to hide, well – he was a blind man, she knew he couldn’t get far.  
  
“But you’re going to be doing some explaining, as soon as all of this is over,” Karen finishes. “…You better be alright.” And then, she runs down the alleyway.   
  
Matt waits until the sound of her footsteps are a sufficient distance away before turning and walking slowly toward the exit of the alley, cane sweeping out in front of him in wide arcs.   
  
Time to win his Oscar.


End file.
